If you’re familiar with SEO strategies, you’ve probably come across link building. Links are a vital part of SEO. This is mainly because there is a direct correlation between the number and quality of links to and from a website and the volume of search traffic that is directed to the website.

SEO is all about increasing the visibility of your website to search engines, getting better ranking and acquiring higher volumes of organic traffic. Popular search engines such as Google use link volume and quality as a ranking factor for their search results pages. Search engines use link volume and quality to gauge the quality and relevance of a website’s content.

In other words, links to your website are a vote of confidence and popularity. The more votes you have from others who are also trusted by others, the higher ranking you’ll receive from search engines.

Quality over quantity
The trick with links is getting high-quality links as opposed to high volume. Quality trumps quantity when it comes to link building. But how can you determine whether a link will provide you with value or not?

Links that are valuable come from well-known websites such as news websites as well as other websites that are considered authorities in your niche. The more valuable your link, the better chances you have of getting higher ranking. A good example of a highly valuable link would be a link from an article in a website like the New York Times for an article they interviewed you for.

Building a link profile
This doesn’t mean that you should only have links from news websites. The following are some aspects to consider when building your link profile.

Link to relevant websites
Get links from websites that are relevant to your niche. If you’re a building contractor in New York, seek links from websites in the building industry in the region.

Link to trusted and authority websites
Links to websites that are considered authorities or that are highly trusted in any niche are worth a lot of value. Link from websites of trusted organizations such as news agencies, government websites and educational websites will provide you with a lot of value in your link profile.

Diversify
Be sure to diversify your link profile. This will be considered by search engines as an indication that your website can be trusted. A diverse link profile looks natural to search engines. You can therefore avoid being red-flagged. Search for links from blogs, website directories, social media and other such websites.

Link building takes time. However, it is worth it in the long run. Be patient and avoid spammy linking. If you need help to build a good link profile, our team will help you.